Wednesday, September 12

Model Franchise

I think it's safe to say that Clay Bennett has modeled his current franchise on the San Antonio Spurs. From his GM to his coach to his "culture" mindset, it's evident that what you see in San Antonio is what Clay Bennett would like to see in the Puget Sound (or, Oklahoma, depending on your level of cynicism; at supersonicsoul, our level of cynicism for Mr. Bennett is currently at "Used Car Salesman" level and on the verge of "Politician During Election Campaign").

The reason I bring this up is in regard to the current stadium debate in Seattle, and how it ties in with an interesting piece of news from San Antonio, Mr. Bennett's land of milk and honey, where everyone is a Republican, speaks with the proper accent, and the NBA team wins 70% of its games.

For those of you too lazy to read the article, it boils down to this:

The Spurs got a $193.5 million stadium from the city of San Antonio five years ago. Now they want $164 million to upgrade the ancient edifice because "without new sources of revenue, [the Spurs] cannot pay the player salaries that would allow the team to keep winning."

In other words, the great seers of San Antonio, who can forecast a player's ability to succeed with phenomenal accuracy, who can tell that an obscure Argentinian and an unknown Belgian would vault them to heights unforeseen in the NBA, do not possess the ability to make a profit in a five-year-old stadium when they are the reigning NBA Champions?

This tells me two things:

1. The NBA structure must be horribly out of whack if the NBA Champs are struggling financially with a stadium that is a year older than my pre-school aged daughter; and

2. No matter how much money the City of Seattle throws away on a new Sonic Arena, within 5-10 years that building will be insufficient to meet the team's needs.

Call me a cynic, call me an oversimplifier of unbelievably complicated situations, but I am slowly reaching the boiling point for this arena situation. As far as I'm concerned, the NBA and their owners and their messed-up system can go jump in a lake. If you took all the sales taxes paid towards arenas and stadia in the past two decades, you could probably build a home for every poor family in the United States. Instead, we as citizens continue to subsidize these lying blackmailers out of fear of "losing our team." And yet, these owners and leagues continue to peddle flim-flam schemes that would make the Music Man proud, pawning one city off another, using one city's new toy arena as a threat to extort a new arena for themselves.

Some might search the Bible for prophecies and allegorical references to our times, but I prefer old Steve Martin movies. Check out this link to a "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" clip on youtube that someone posted over at the Tacoma Tribune--without properly clarifying its symbolism (Michael Caine is Aubrey McKlendon, Steve Martin is Clay Bennet, and the ladies they try to swindle represent a certain basketball team).

Note in particular how Steve Martin/ Clay Bennet first feigns reluctance to take the girl away to a new city, and then enthusiastically embraces the idea, suggesting that he and Caine/ McKlendon planned it that way all along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aFUv2KO8So

We live in prophetic times; Steve Martin is God, and Clay Bennet's true name is Ruprect.

this is perfect. it would stand to reason that if a company (these teams are companies) can afford a player payroll upwards of $55 million each year, they'd be able to afford the annual payments on a 10-year lease-purchase on a new $200 million stadium. sure it might mean that they have to pay players less for a while. but seriously. i would line up to watch a team that privately funds its own stadium, even if said team sucks.

Maybe the only business model that works is to locate on Indian reservations, which is the equivalent of a tax & gambling shelter. Let the gambling, hotel, restaurant & cigarette provide revenue to cover the cost of the stadium.

Owners don't need to make a year on year profit to ultimately make money owning a team. All you gotta do is sell the team and you make a fortune. Look at Schultz, always wining about losing money. Well, he came out ahead when he sold the team.

NUSSBAUM!!!! If you have enough love for the Supes that you would be a part of a website like this one, then you should know that keeping this team by any means necessary remains the number one goal of any true Sonic fan. If you don't want to "DEAL WITH THIS" then you're just lazy, and you don't care enough about the Sonics. But I believe the job of ANY Sonics website should be PUMPING UP the city, not spreading a cynical lack of patience. We have to make the difference here, and we can, but not with whiners like you getting fed up before the real fight has even begun. Step up and show some love for KD and your Supes.

I agree 100%. We should not unconditionaly cave into greedy billionare OKC buisness men and having to replace your arena every 15-20 years is unsustainable and the NBA will pay when the OKC Sonics mover to Fresno and the KC Hornets move to Louisville 10 years from now.